Non-Communicable Diseases

Key Facts

According to Global Status report, in 2012, Out of 56 million deaths, 38 million deaths (68%)because of NCDs and out of that more than 40% were premature & occur before the age of 70 & 82% of burden of such diseases is borne by low and middle income countries. WHO indicates that India ranks very high among the nations affected by the rising wave of premature deaths caused by NCDs. In India, more than 5.8 million Indians die because of cancer, diabetes, stroke, Lung & heart diseases each year.

Overview

'Non-Communicable Diseases' i.e NCDs, also known as chronic diseases. These diseases are not passed from person to person. Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) are usually caused by genetic or lifestyle factors & these diseases of long duration and generally slow progression. The Four main type of NCDs are cardiovascular diseases, Cancers, Chronic respiratory diseases & Diabetes.

Risk Factors

The rise of NCDs has been driven by these major risk factors: tobacco use, physical inactivity, unhealthy diet, and the harmful use of alcohol which affects to metabolic/physiological changes like overweight/obesity, raised blood glucose, raised blood pressure and raised cholesterol

Many Faces of Death

A Non-Communicable Disease or NCD is any illness that is not infectious. The most common ones include heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, respiratory diseases, and cataracts. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that there is a shifting in the global burden of diseases from infectious disease to Non-Communicable Disease.

Importance of Prevention

Prevention plays a big role in NCDs. NCDs can be prevented by controlling major risk factors like the harmful use of tobacco, alcohol consumption or obesity, unhealthy diet and physical inactivity.

Thought it was an established fact as well as a general belief that people who maintain high levels of fitness are at low risk of being affected by Non-Communicable Diseases compared to those who are unfit and lead an unhealthy lifestyle.But Even young and fit people also can be suffered from NCDs like cancers or heart diseases. There we have well known examples of Yuvraj Singh at his 30s being diagnosed with cancer & 27 year old D Venkatesh's died on the field because heart attack or recently late star David Bowie died from liver cancer. So early detection and preventive health screening is an undeniable requirement.

References:

Alcohol : 3.3 million people die because of harmful use of alcohol annually. There are more 60diseases where alcohol has a significant causal role. In 2010, the worldwide total 62% of adults abstained from alcohol in the past 12 months.

Physical inactivity: Globally around 3.2 million deaths and 69.3 million DALYs because of insufficient physical activity. And around 23% of adults aged 18+ years were insufficiently physically active.

Blood glucose: Around 8.5% of adults aged 18 and over had raised blood glucose in 2014

Tobacco : From tobacco use and exposure to tobacco smoke result in the death of 6 million people annually. Out of World's population 22% aged 15+ are smokers.

Overweight/ obesity: Globally in 2014, adults aged 18 and over, around 39% were overweight & around 13% were obese.

Heart attacks & strokes: Cardiovascular disease was the leading cause of NCD deaths in 2012. Out of 17.5 million NCD deaths, 46% or 7.4 million were due to heart attacks and 6.7 million were due to strokes.

Cholesterol: Roughly 39% of adults aged 25 and over had raised cholesterol, in 2008.

Unhealthy diet: Approximately 1.7 million of deaths worldwide were attributable to low fruit and vegetable consumption in 2008.